Teacher Mama: Bottle Cap Math - Boy Mama Teacher Mama

I have been saving bottle tops from the milk lately. I didn’t know why until the other day when it hit me– another great way to practice math skills! So, I took out my beloved Sharpie (How much do you love Sharpies???) and numbered them 0-10. I also labeled a few with a +, x, – and = sign. Then I set to work. How many different math skills could be practiced with these tops? Well, here we go!

Note: We did these activities on a white board so we could write the answers, draw columns etc and not waste paper. Plus, kids love writing on the whiteboard- at least mine does!

Scatter and Order: Lay out or scatter all the caps number side up. Have your child put them in order from 0-10. Try from 10-0 as well.

Blind Scatter and Sort: Turn all the bottle caps number side down, have your child flip one number at at a time and put them in order from 0-10 and 10-0

What’s The Number? Turn all the caps number side up in order from 0-10 then turn a few face down. Have your child determine which caps are turned over.

Addition: Turn all the caps number side down. Arrange the + and = signs as pictured below. Have your child choose two caps to create an addition problem (also called a number sentence) then add the numbers and say or write the answer.

Addition Strings: Follow the directions for the Addition game, but use 3 or more numbers in the number sentence.

Subtraction: Same as addition, but use the – and = signs. Be sure your child remembers to put the bigger number first in the number sentence or you will be dealing with negative numbers. If you have an older child- try this with negatives numbers. It is a great challenge!

Multiplication: Same as above, but multiply. Try the number strings as well with multiplication.

Sorting Numbers: Make two columns and sort the caps into the appropriate columns. Some sorting suggestions are odd/even and greater than a #/less than a #. For younger children, a sort might be curvy numbers/straight numbers or numbers I know/those I don’t.

Complete the Pattern: Create a pattern with a missing number and see if your child can figure out what the number is.

What’s Missing: Arrange the numbers in 0-10 order and remove a few caps. Have your child determine which numbers are missing.

Place Value and Big Numbers: Use the bottle caps to create and read numbers with more than 2 digits. Talk about which number is in the ones, tens, hundreds etc place and what the value of each number is as well.